Hey guys, Ive been doing alot of scouring the internet, and i haven't really found anything that answers my question.

Right now, i have a Pioneer AVH-p4200dvd hooked up in my car, and while its not a terrible headunit, its not for me. I could go on, but ill stop there. I have a friend interested in buying it from me, and im seriously tempted to do it. He is an apple fan-boy, and im more than happy to get rid of this if i can.

My answer is to replace it with a small single din headunit. I can hide the headunit in my dash, and build in a nice android tablet to hook up to its aux inputs. I rarely ever listen to radio, and from what ive seen, i can get a bluetooth gps device, bluetooth OBD2 reader, and do wifi tethering from my phone for anything else i may want. It seems to me that it will be the perfect solution, and ive found everything i need to make it work.

The only problem is that i cannot for the life of me find anything that will allow me to control the tablet via my steering-wheel controls. I only have a few buttons, (volume up, volume down, mute, back, forward) but i would really like to find a way to make those work correctly.

This is the only thing ive found thus far that is along the lines of what im looking for:

Hey guys, Ive been doing alot of scouring the internet, and i haven't really found anything that answers my question.

Right now, i have a Pioneer AVH-p4200dvd hooked up in my car, and while its not a terrible headunit, its not for me. I could go on, but ill stop there. I have a friend interested in buying it from me, and im seriously tempted to do it. He is an apple fan-boy, and im more than happy to get rid of this if i can.

My answer is to replace it with a small single din headunit. I can hide the headunit in my dash, and build in a nice android tablet to hook up to its aux inputs. I rarely ever listen to radio, and from what ive seen, i can get a bluetooth gps device, bluetooth OBD2 reader, and do wifi tethering from my phone for anything else i may want. It seems to me that it will be the perfect solution, and ive found everything i need to make it work.

The only problem is that i cannot for the life of me find anything that will allow me to control the tablet via my steering-wheel controls. I only have a few buttons, (volume up, volume down, mute, back, forward) but i would really like to find a way to make those work correctly.

This is the only thing ive found thus far that is along the lines of what im looking for:

If you decided to keep that headunit it looks like it has a bluetooth addon..but I don't know if it supports A2DP. If it does you may just need that module and then pair it with your tablet. Then you should be able to control music from your steering wheel...just in theory. I know this seemed to work for me in a ford fusion rental but that had onboard bluetooth with that Sync software not sure if they did anything special for that to work. That controller you found does look interesting though. I would do further searching about any other integrations for that or maybe something that can be rigged. I know that some of the tablet docking stations have USB inputs for external devices such as a keyboard...my smartphone has that feature also. Perhaps that is a place to look at for integrating with that controller with the tablet.

12-04-2011, 05:05 PM

ViperThreat

Quote:

Originally Posted by hexxamillion

If you decided to keep that headunit it looks like it has a bluetooth addon..but I don't know if it supports A2DP. If it does you may just need that module and then pair it with your tablet. Then you should be able to control music from your steering wheel...just in theory. I know this seemed to work for me in a ford fusion rental but that had onboard bluetooth with that Sync software not sure if they did anything special for that to work.

The thing is, the bluetooth addon is $160+ depending on where i buy it, and I just find that to be a rediculous amount of money considering i can buy a bluetooth adapter for my pc for $15 at the local electronics shop. Id much rather sell the unit, get a smaller cheaper unit, and try from there. I may look into that though, if i could find an android compatible headunit, maybe that will be helpful.

Quote:

That controller you found does look interesting though. I would do further searching about any other integrations for that or maybe something that can be rigged. I know that some of the tablet docking stations have USB inputs for external devices such as a keyboard...my smartphone has that feature also. Perhaps that is a place to look at for integrating with that controller with the tablet.

This is what i was thinking, my only concern is that the device i linked appears to require windows-based software to configure and operate correctly. Im not sure if theres an app for configuring it for android.

12-04-2011, 06:41 PM

zr2ee

i believe there are some adrino boards out there that interface with android and possibly take external inputs, however at this point they are more for developers and tinkerers. finding a deck with a added universal steering wheel control interface is a good way to go.